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TL;DR - I feel the perception of this is worse than the reality of it, that few knowledgeable competitive players consider one frame links, combos, etc. to be a measure of skill, and that on top of that, a small few games which are more well known are more or less partially to blame for the common misconceptions regarding the elements that are considered the basic skills, or the elements which best demonstrate skill in competitive fighting games.

I disagree. I think the perception of this is not nearly as bad as it is.

You seem well versed in SF4 so I'll use that as an example(it's also generally considered by the scene to be a fun and well balanced game and gets huge participation).

SF4 is the most new player friend SF game ever. I mean that literally. SF2 is less friendly than this game and everyone basically was new when that came out.

Now SF4 is in spite of this extremely poor from a learning perspective.

Arbitrary game quirks leads to a ton of situations that a non-pro player will never figure out through natural game play(unblockables, options selects).

The entire combo system is punishing to anyone not intending to spend 20 hours a week on fighting games(casual audience for a game is like 5hours a week). Even two frame links will take a new player weeks to learn to do with any kind of consistency.

Worse the footsie system is non-intuitive as well. Hit boxes and hurt boxes rarely line up with graphics(crouching hp for sakura). You generally have to be told what moves are worth using because frame advantage/disadvantage is an invisible thing that is very hard to pick up on through actual gameplay.

Hardcore fighting gamers seem to think it is okay to require hours and hours of research outside of playing to learn how to play a game. The thing is a game shouldn't need that. A game shouldn't even need a training mode, outside of just as a place to mess around.

Let's look at a game that is immensely popular with casual players, League

League is forgiving to a fault. Last hitting, the supposedly hard mechanical skill test of the game is a laugh compared to even easy fighting game combo's. Research is really only a big deal when learning how to rune/mastery and can be completed in less than an hour, and honestly both runes and masteries are terrible because they fail to provide the customization that is their reason to exist.

The entire rest of the game is only strategic thinking that you learn while playing.

This is equivalent to a fighting game where position, footsies, counter picks and reads were the only things tested. No such fighting game exists and never will. Why? Because as much as competitive players say they like those things the games people like to play and watch, are games like marvel and KoF and even SF4. Games that de-emphasize strategic thought behind execution, broken mechanics, and overpowered mix ups. SFxT, the game that tried to focus less on these things, was a massive flop competitively and that was with unprecedented Capcom support. If this game had come out for any other company or any year other than the 25th anniversary, it would never have gotten another moments thought.

a good example of this is WOWs cataclysm expansion, blizzard thought the consumers wanted the game to be dumbed down so they made the game more casual , as a result they lost their hardcore fanbase, now people might think hardcores are the minority, but it was the hardcores who were guild leaders and planned world events , it was the hardcores who made youtube videos and it was the hardcores who were on forums talking about lore and different builds for every class.

what was the point of adding someone like Thresh if you were gonna butcher all interactions with the lantern because of stupid pathetic excuses like "anti-fun" and "counter-intuitive"

So pathetic things like "game design." Got it.

All interactions are not desirable. How much do we have to nerf Tresh and Blitz because of this single interaction if we leave it in? Should one edge case determine the balance of two characters - one of which has tons of new strategic things opened up due to his existence?

This is agenda-speak. "If you remove any edge cases, it's because you're for noobs/casuals/bads etc" That's a shallow interpretation of this.

a good example of this is WOWs cataclysm expansion, blizzard thought the consumers wanted the game to be dumbed down so they made the game more casual , as a result they lost their hardcore fanbase, now people might think hardcores are the minority, but it was the hardcores who were guild leaders and planned world events , it was the hardcores who made youtube videos and it was the hardcores who were on forums talking about lore and different builds for every class.

But the hardcore doesn't make up the majority of the fan base, i.e. the 9 million subscribers still playing the game.

Millions and millions of the subscribers are casual players. Is something wrong with being a casual player? They pay the same amount of money as everyone else.

And btw, hardcore players are always looking for an excuse to leave the game. After 10,000-15,000 hours of playing the game, they are psychologically attached and need something to change for them to summon the mental courage to leave. It has a lot more to do with them needing an excuse than Blizzard actually making an error in game design.

All interactions are not desirable. How much do we have to nerf Tresh and Blitz because of this single interaction if we leave it in? Should one edge case determine the balance of two characters - one of which has tons of new strategic things opened up due to his existence?

This is agenda-speak. "If you remove any edge cases, it's because you're for noobs/casuals/bads etc" That's a shallow interpretation of this.

You didn't remove it because you wanted to cater to noobs. "Noobs" would love this interaction because it would give them an experience to love and learn from. The most "casual" of people in every game I have played. Wc3, CSS, WoW even, they LOVE interactions like this, they no longer identify themselves as casual as they start dedicating themselves to understand and learn more about the game.

you removed it because you believe it would/could be used for trolling or give "unfair" advantages. You justified it with your own merits of game design, which apparently from older posts you have stated "We don't care if it's boring, as long as it is solid gameplay"

"What's the point of even having Thresh' lantern, why not just give him a herp derp shield Armor/MR gap closer?" You don't do this because you at least have learned from the past few years that no one likes this at all. At least you tried with this lantern, but you have the wrong ideas on how to implement such mechanics.

and it's not just this specific case. The point is that your design team does not have the proper attitude towards creativity and innovative based plays when you perceive things like this to be bugs. It's pathetic because you put your own limits on the player due to claims of it being poor game design. It's pure arrogance and egoistic principles. I'm sure many people were just as pissed when you removed ward jumping, once again as a result of your flawless design principles.

Nothing about this interaction is "broken" it requires teamwork, it requires mechanical skill. It is not a guaranteed victory. Broken would be someone comboing to pull an enemy towards your fountain

Again, it's not the actual interaction specifically, it's the idea you tell to your community Riot. You should encourage your players to think creatively like this, not punish them for deviating from faceroll and muscle memory. It's the message you give towards your community that is powerful

You didn't remove it because you wanted to cater to noobs. "Noobs" would love this interaction because it would give them an experience to love and learn from.

you removed it because you believe it would/could be used for trolling or give "unfair" advantages. You justified it with your own merits of game design, which apparently from older posts you have stated "We don't care if it's boring, as long as it is solid gameplay"

and it's not just this specific case. The point is that your design team does not have the proper attitude towards creativity and innovative based plays when you perceive things like this to be bugs

Nothing about this interaction is "broken" it requires teamwork, it requires mechanical skill. It is not a guaranteed victory. Broken would be someone comboing to pull an enemy towards your fountain

So you would be okay w/them nerfing blitz and thresh hard if it meant they left this interaction in the game?

That's not mechanical depth or interaction, it's raw power. You always have to assume the most abusive case when balancing, because the players will always strive to find the most powerful option available to them. If you don't cut off abusive edge cases as soon as you find them, then they become the only things players use, and THAT is true imbalance.